Just premiered at Comic Con, this new "homage" trailer for Tim Burton's Frankenweenie goes retro, featuring some campy '50s-style voiceover and--in an apparent secondary homage, to stop-motion body horror--a scene in which a girl's cute cat grotesquely mutates, erupting with long, fleshy legs and a sparsely-haired, fly-like epidermis. After what seemed to be an inevitable decline into sanitized Disney pap, suddenly Burton is giving John Carpenter a run for his money?
Look back on how Tim Burton made a bunch of movies with Tim Burton: A Filmography, an animated short Martin Woutisseth made as a comprehensive tour of the Burton oeuvre. The recent Dark Shadows is not included, but Planet of the Apes most certainly is, so call Mark Wahlberg in before you start. Or play it in a public space, and watch everyone around you slowly come to the assumption Tim Burton must have died or something.
This Russian trailer for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is pretty much just like the domestic trailer. The one difference: at the end of this one, Count Johnny Depp goes to an Alice Cooper concert, allowing for yet another "I don't get the '70s!" moment from our hero. Why not?
If earlier, staid photos of Dark Shadows had you thinking Johnny Depp might wear some refined dignity atop his plastered-down hair, this first trailer for the film should make clear how wrong you were. It is zany times! Specifically, it is zany time 1972, when Depp's vampire patriarch, Barnabas Collins, awakens from a centuries of being buried in a coffin. How will an ancient vampire react to Volkswagen busses, lava lamps, and other half-hearted references to the early '70s??? Here, let Tim Burton show you that.
- Scarlett Johansson has signed on to star as Psycho star Janet Leigh in Anvil director Sacha Gervasi's Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, which already has Anthony Hopkins attached to the title role. Helen Mirren will be Hitchcock's wife, Alma, and "Scarlett Johansson shower scene" will be the first predicted image search after you type "Sc."
- Owen Wilson is reportedly considering joining Tina Fey in an adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz's Admission. Fey would play an Ivy League admissions officer in an illicit relationship with a young prospect, while Wilson would play a high school teacher who falls for her. He'll be the one with the cartoon surfer hair.
- This Means War writer Timothy Dowling describes his script for the planned Will Smith-Denzel Washington-led Uptown Saturday Night remake as being "similar in tone to 'The Hangover.'" Of course it is.
- Here are some portraits of the stars of Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. From that series, above is Liza Minnelli as a gothic pimp.
To hear that Tim Burton has done a stop-motion remade of his 1984 black-and-white short about a boy's dog brought back to life through Frankenstein-esque methods, you probably already get a pretty decent mental image of what that is probably going to look like. Here's the film's trailer to say, "You were right about everything. Except Catherine O'Hara is the mom instead of Helena Bonham Carter, and Johnny Depp is conspicuously absent." Maybe he's providing the barks?
The director of Planet of the Apes (2001, M. Wahlberg, H.B. Carter) has this new movie about a Frankenstein dog. Here is the film's poster, a reminder of the October release and also of pets lost, their souls scampering beyond the rainbow bridge, where they now wait for us as angel dogs and angel cats that look just as we remember them but now do even more cute things to post on Angel Internet. At least in my understanding.
If Osombie seemed slightly too lowbrow for your taste, but you still want to be there when the historical-fiction genre collapses in on itself, give this trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter a go. In the Tim Burton-produced, Timur Bekmambetov-directed film, Benjamin Walker stars as the 16th President, who now has an axe, and uses that axe to fell both tree and vampire with a single crushing, slow-motion blow. And that's about it:
"Yes. I love that character, and Michael [Keaton] is so great in it. I always think about how great and fun that character was, so I just said to ["Vampire Hunter" writer] Seth [Grahame-Smith], 'If you have some idea about it, go for it, and then I'll look at it freshly.' In the past, I tried some things, but that was way back when. He seemed really excited about it."
So, it sounds like we really might be getting another Beetlejuice, and Burton and Keaton might even be involved. And if Grahame-Smith's writing history is any indication, Beetlejuice will probably be fighting witches. Or devils? Wait, duh, it's obviously mummies next.
What's more, while you're already expecting to hear Johnny Depp's name next, officially making this the most "dark, Tim Burton-esque adaptation" since last time Tim Burton made a dark, Tim Burton-esque adaptation, it seems Depp is not the one currently attached to the lead. Rather, Burton reportedly has his eye on a different handsome, late forties, white, dark-haired, tinted glasses-wearing, box office-established former bad boy: Robert Downey Jr. Burton can drink a Pepsi instead of a Coke every now and then, guys. He may wince a little at first, but he'll choke it down.
Neither have yet officially committed to the project, but Warner is said to be eager to get them locked so that they can rush this effer out in time to compete with Guillermo del Toro's dark stop-motion Pinocchio and Shawn Levy's reportedly Big Fish-like story of Geppetto. Of all the dark and/or Tim Burton-esque Pinocchios out there, theirs will be the most darkly Tim Burton-esque of all! They were totally wearing Jack Skellington beanies before everyone else in their class, too.
Ignoring the Prince song that happened last time Tim Burton designed a parade float, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade commissioned a new balloon design from the director, and the results pictured above will be floating above the streets of New York next month. With an utter disregard for breakdancing culture, Burton has dubbed the creation "B. Boy," and according to the New York Times, there's an entire backstory behind the bloated, seemingly-drowned, floating child. His scarred skin represents the pilgrims and natives coming together with the stitches of cooked bird! Just kidding, it's some typical Tim Burton shit:
- Here's another look at how Johnny Depp is going to look in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Like he's an undead Liza Minnelli?
- Susan Sarandon is in talks to join Dwayne Johnson on Snitch, in which she would play an ambitious U.S. attorney hoping to make a big case off of The Rock's undercover work. And while they're all in the room talking, might as well get both actors signed on to a Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Remake, too, right?
- Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich is chronicling his next Pixar project a photo a day. I'm taking this first image of a keyboard to mean it's probably Cars, but with computers. So, Computers. (via)
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are out--apparently in a quarry--shooting their film adaptation of the 1960s, dracula-filled soap opera Dark Shadows, and Celebuzz has the first look at Depp in costume as Barnabas Collins, the vampire family patriarch. What's interesting about this is that Barnabas Collins as originally portrayed by Jonathan Frid looked like this, while Depp's take on the part appears to be somewhere between Joker and Mafioso Powder, which looks crazy.
Apparently unimpressed by whatever gossip Johnny Depp reported back from the set of The Tourist, Tim Burton has broken off his loose, year-long attachment to direct Angelina Jolie in Maleficent. Undeterred, Disney's plan to tell the live-action story of Sleeping Beauty's green-skinned villainess through the acting of Jolie remains, however, and the studio is already looking for a new director--">reportedly with an eye on David Yates, whose work on the last few Harry Potters has made him a go-to guy for directing tales of black magick. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out. If nothing else, though, this switch-up will probably delay things for a bit, so please try and make do just a little longer with only a dream-world Sleeping Beauty and the one about rich old guys paying to do it with a comatose Emily Browning.
Josh Brolin apparently liked the disfiguring appliances of Jonah Hex almost as much as critic Armond White did. The Hollywood Reporter has news the actor is attached to strap a pillow on his back for a new Warner Bros. adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame--one that Tim Burton is in talks to direct following his Johnny Depp-starring soap opera adaptation, Dark Shadows. Burton's participation is dependent on the script--Sherlock Holmes's Kieran and Michele Mulroney have just been hired to write, implying Warner is taking this in the same action-adventure direction as Don Quixote--but Brolin seems to be more of a lock, so look forward to seeing him limp around a set, another good-looking actor stealing away one of the few parts available for the struggling hunchbacked actor. Hunchbacked man cannot subsist on Igor parts alone, Brolin.
Having ventured out of his usual circle of friends casting pool to give Eva Green a part in Dark Shadows earlier this month, Tim Burton has now retreated back to familiar acting grounds for his vampire soap opera adaptation, adding Michelle Pfeiffer and, as expected, longtime partner Helena Bonham Carter to the film's already-Johnny Depp-centered cast. Pfeiffer, who last worked with Burton playing Catwoman in Batman Returns, will play Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the "the reclusive matriarch of the Collins clan," while Bonham Carter will likely be filling the role of Dr. Julia Hoffman, a psychologist/blood disorders expert--the two specialties go hand in hand--who tries to cure vampire Barnabas (Depp) of his insatiable bloodlust. If only it were so easy, Dr. Julia Hoffman! What a different Twilight Saga we could be living right now.
As Tim Burton sets about adapting Frankenweenie, his 1984 short about a reanimated dog, into a feature length stop-motion film, the director has apparently decided to look deeper into his roster than his domestic partner and John Depp this time. According to Deadline, Burton has brought on previous collaborators Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Landau (yup, he's still alive), and Martin Short to provide voices for the film. Ryder will play a character named Elsa, Landau will voice Mr. Rzykruski, and the other two will use all that SCTV character training to take on five voices a piece. The film is set for release on March 9, 2012, at which point your Jack Skellington beanie will be rendered obsolete.
Tim Burton reportedly has a new project in the works--and this time it's not just taking an old classic and re-doing it to make it obvious Tim Burton did it. Deadline has heard the Robert Smith-haired director is in talks to be a part of Dreamworks' plans for an adaptation of Monsterpocalypse, which is apparently a kaiju-based (Godzilla things) version of one of those complicated games you with dice and figurines on a giant table. So next time you see some kids playing this at the weird kids table of the cafeteria, take a moment to consider that their little hobby may be the next big blockbuster before you sweep your arms across the table and knock all their gay little trinkets on the floor.
Angelina Jolie, widely considered Earth's best and most aesthetically pleasing mother, is considering taking on the title role in Disney's forthcoming Malificent from the mind of Mulan screenwriter Linda Woolverton. Jolie would play the bad guy from Sleeping Beauty in a postmodern take on the tale that would focus on her exploits instead of the fairy tale world's most famous potential date rape victim.
With Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland currently crushing the box office, Disney is anxious to get another reimagined classic in production for an inevitably immersive 3D theater run. It's been said Burton might end up directing this one, too, so it will be sad when Jolie is eventually fired as the cast is entirely repopulated by Depps and Bonham Carters.
Yesterday evening, enjoying a double feature of The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values, Tim Burton came to a shocking revelation when he was trying to figure out why he hadn't cast Johnny Depp in the role of Gomez.
"'Director... Barry Sonnenfeld'," he muttered in confusion.
"Helena, would you take a look at this? The program guide says Sonnenfeld directed this! Yeah, the Men in Black guy! I didn't make this? But all the pale faces, constant greyness... who'd have thought?"
"Well, anyway," he continued, "I'd better get to work Corpse Briding the shit out of this thing."
Tim Burton has found a new 3D project. He will direct a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams' original ghoulish cartoon drawings of The Addams Family. Illumination Entertainment, the Universal-based family film unit headed by Chris Meledandri, has acquired the underlying rights of the Addams drawings, once a staple of The New Yorker magazine.
Other than being inspired by the same source material, the animated feature is unrelated to previous incarnations of Addams’ work.
Come on, Tim Burton. The Addams Family? Kind of obvious, isn't it? There aren't many places to go from here in terms of making things ridiculously stereotypically Burton. Your path is now set. It will be this, then an adaptation of Edward Gorey illustrations, then a movie where Johnny Depp plays a gnarled iron fence.
